Denys Shafikov Takes Down First-Ever WPT Russia For $255,258

Ukraine’s Denys Shafikov has won the WPT Russia Main Event title and the $255,259 top prize after outlasting 503 entries. With this win, Shafikov has joined the exclusive club of WPT Main Event champs and will compete in the season-ending Baccarat Crystal WPT Tournament of Champions.

As mentioned, the Main Event drew 503 entries and generated a prize pool of $1,358,200. Hosted at Casino Sochi in the Russian city of Sochi, it took 7 days of action for the winner to be determined. The tournament was capped just yesterday at the host casino with the 6-handed final table.

Shafikov entered final day of the event as the chip leader. The poker pro had 5.335 million chips at the start of the final day. He was far ahead of Aleksey Gortikov, his closest competitor holding 3.36 million chips, and Yauhen Kontush who had 2.66 million in chips. Mikhail Galitskiy had 1.98 million in chips, Oleg Pavlyuchuk held 1 million and Nikolay Fal had a stack of 785,000.

Moving into final table as the chip leader, Shafikov dominated the action to eventually win the title. He went on to extend his existing chip lead by eliminating three of the five final table players, busting Galitskiy in 5th place and Fal in 4th place. Pavlyuchuk exited the tournament in 6th place.

By the time the field came down to the final three, Shafikov had built a controlling stack. Kontush exited in third place to leave Shafikov and Gortikov to battle it out in heads-up for the title.

Heads-Up

The heads-up began with the eventual champion holding chip lead over his final opponent. The dual lasted over 60 hands with chips swinging back and forth. Shafikov never lost his control.

On the final hand of the event, Shafikov raised from the button with pocket nines and Gortikov shoved all in with Ac-7c. Shafikov called. The board ran Ks-3h-2d-9s-4h, giving Shafikov the title and the first-place prize. Gortikov had to settle for the $171,236 for his remarkable runner-up finish.